


Like the Constellations

by MishaRain



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Editor!Phil, Im trying my best, Incorrect knowledge of a lot of stuff tbh, M/M, Please Don't Hate Me, Slow Burn, Spaceboy!Dan, director!pj, google searches can only tell you so much guys, im trying i swear, incorrect knowledge about makeup, incorrect knowledge of radio shows, just accept it at this point please, lots of space references, more tags to be added later, popstar!dan, probably incorrect interpretations of real people, radiohost!chris, slightly spaceboy!phil, songs?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-02 04:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8651374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MishaRain/pseuds/MishaRain
Summary: After Dan had released his debut album Sunset, he was under a ton of pressure to keep up appearances. Everything changed too quickly for him to handle. In comes Phil. Smart, funny Phil. The boys meet twice. Once when Dan is in disguise, pretending to not be an international pop sensation, and once on the set of the music for the song Sunset. Phil doesn't know that his Dan and the Dan he's working with are the same person, and as much as Dan wants to tell him, he can't. Not without breaking the appearance he has struggled with for so long to maintain.





	1. Chapter 1

“Do I have to?” Dan complained. “This is the third one this week! Third one in three days!

“I’m sorry, hun, but you knew the conditions when you agreed to this contract,” Dan’s manager, Elise, told him. “And I reminded you of this last night so you would have no way to claim you ‘didn’t know’.”

Dan sighed irritatedly as he dramatically flopped down onto the sofa. “I know, I know. It’s just-”

Elise cut him off. “No more complaining. Up up up.” She shooed him off of the couch. “Time to go.”

Dan begrudgingly trudged along after Elise as she led him to the car. He knew she had his best interests at heart, but he was under the impression that he would finally have time to relax after he released his much anticipated first album, Sunset.

Such was not case. If anything, Dan had significantly more to do now than he did while making the album. During the making and especially during the writing of the album, he could work at his own pace for the most part and could take days off if he just wasn’t feeling it that day. Now, however, it was interview after interview after interview and meeting after meeting after meeting. Needless to say, Dan was getting sick of it. Quite literally. It had been three days since the release of the album and he had barely slept since then and had huge bags under his eyes as a result. Nothing that a little--or a lot--of makeup couldn’t fix, as he reminded Elise on a daily basis. Still, she worried and had threatened to take away his phone and every other device that he could access the internet on. Or even worse, she threatened to change the wifi password.

It wasn’t / technically / his fault the internet had exploded after the album was released. Well it was. He was the one who had released the album, after all. But, as Elise was constantly reminding him, he didn’t need to stalk every single social media platform for 12 hours a day just to see everyone’s reactions and whatnot. Even if he was constantly on the internet, it wasn’t like he could do anything about it.

This still didn’t stop Dan. When he wasn’t at an interview or planning for his tour with all these different, actually responsible, people, he was on Tumblr. According to highly credible sources, aka Dan’s own personal experiences and no scientific research paper or whatever, this was obviously the best platform to see people’s genuine reactions to the album. In the days leading up to the release of the album, there had been literally thousands of posts in #sunsetalbum and #danhowell. Now there were almost a million.

Dan got into the car parked outside of his “safe house” and immediately got on his phone. Elise shot a disapproving glance his way, but remained silent. She pulled out a folder and immediately started filling out paperwork for something. Dan knew better by now than to ask about it. Elise just got irritated whenever she was interrupted during these times. After a several minutes of awkward silence, Elise looked up.

“What are people saying about the album Dan?” she asked politely, keeping her face straight.

“What ever happened to you not approving of me browsing the internet about it?” Dan quipped back, surprised, while still scrolling through Tumblr.

“Don’t get your hopes up. And you aren’t just ‘browsing,’ you’re stalking. And besides, I just wanted to know if it was worth it to start on getting a team together for a music video. Not worth it unless people like the album,” she said evenly, without looking up from the paperwork.

Dan glanced up at her, confused. “Don’t we already have a music video in the works?” he asked.

He didn’t pay too much attention to it and continued to scroll endlessly, trying to ignore the flood of people tagging him in stuff. He had to turn his Tumblr notification emails off long ago for whenever he got a mention, but he still received a few push notifications from a select few blogs. When he had notifications turned on, they were constantly crashing his phone and his computer too. Even now, his phone was acting up, but to be fair, it’s Tumblr mobile which was notorious for not working.

“Oh.” Elise blushed. “I forgot. And yeah we do.”

Dan closed his phone with a sudden realization. “Hold on.” He grabbed the paperwork and closed the folder so he could actually see Elise’s face. “You actually are curious. You care.”

If Elise was blushing before, it was nothing in comparison to how red she turned. “Wha- No! Why do you think that? It’s my job to know what’s going on and I just need to know for... for tax reasons!” she blurted out.

“Tax reasons? Really? That’s your excuse? There’s a whole world of excuses out there and you went with tax reasons? Seriously?”

Elise responded by burying her face in her hands. “I couldn’t think of anything else.” Dan reached over and awkwardly patted her on the back. She looked up and gently brushed his hand away. “Okay so what do people think?”

Dan opened his phone and started reading off the comment from the tag that he saw. “ ‘this is literally the best thing i have ever been blessed with hearing’ Most of them are something along those lines. Of course there’s a few negative comments but that’s to be expected.”

Elise immediately looked much brighter and let out a huge sigh of relief. “Phew. I was worried. The guy who I managed before you had such a bad initial corporate response to his first album that he quit music forever, but let’s not talk about that.”

“How many people have you actually been a manager for?” Dan asked. He was always learning new things about Elise, even though they had been working together for over a year and a half.

Elise pondered this for a minute before answering. “Three including you. I didn’t get along with the first girl so she asked for a new manager fairly quickly. Didn’t seem to like the fact that I liked girls even though there was no way in hell I would ever try to go for her. The second guy quit and now I have you. Of course, those other two weren't made public to anyone outside of the company so technically I probably wasn't supposed to tell you since you weren’t affiliated with us at that point in time. Did you know the company was nervous about letting me manage you?”

Elise rambled on about the company and how they were slightly apprehensive about assigning her to anyone else, even if Dan had chosen her himself, and their other rules, but Dan had stopped paying attention to everything she said after Elise accidentally told him she liked girls as his mind raced, trying to make sure he had heard what he thought he heard. “You’re gay?” he asked softly to clarify, cutting across Elise.

Elise stopped rambling and processed what all she had said. Her eyes widened to the size of golf balls once she realized exactly what she had said and her body immediately tensed up. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.” She snatched her paperwork back from Dan and buried her face into it, a little too aggressively filling it in and ignoring Dan’s attempts to get her to respond.

“Elise. Elise. Elise,” Dan pestered her. “It’s fine. I don’t care who you are attracted to. To be fair, if I judged you negatively for being gay, it would be quite hypocritical,” he added pointedly. “You know I'm not straight. We had this discussion when I first started working for the company. Remember? It was when we discussed my image and all the stuff like that.”

This finally caused Elise to look up for the paperwork which was all filled out nicely with the writing straight across the lines, an impressive feat considering they were in a moving car. Well, a kinda moving car. London traffic is a bitch after all. “I forgot,” she whispered, so quietly that if Dan hadn’t been giving her his full attention, he would have missed it.

There was sort of an awkward silence following this. Dan, not being sure how she could forget something so important, figured he should probably explain himself again. For Elise’s sake. “I’m not even 100 percent gay, I just don’t give a fuck about someone’s gender identity. Like, I care about whatever you identify as, call yourself a banana for all I care, and I’ll use whatever pronouns you want me to use but it’s just not a factor for me in determining who I am attracted to. I do prefer guys though and so I just typically go with gay because it makes it easier to explain. Not that I do much explaining. I’m not sure I want the internet to know yet.”

“Your whole space and pastel branding doesn’t help either,” Elise laughed, visibly loosening up and relaxing.

“Not in the slightest. We did decide that it would be a little hint though. And then there’s whole Tumblr blogs dedicated to finding proof that I’m gay. It’s kinda crazy to think that people spent quite possibly hours upon hours of their short life searching through every single interview and over analyzing all of my videos and now the lyrics from Sunset. Doesn’t seem worth it to me, but it obviously seems worth it to them so instead of being irritated about it, I choose to be intrigued. I still don’t think I’m ready for them to know the whole truth yet though.”

Dan was happy he could discuss this Elise and he was even more grateful that she was the one who had accidentally brought up the subject in the first place. Normally, Dan didn’t bring up the subject of his sexuality unless it was absolutely necessary. He was really only comfortable talking to people about it if he knew them really well and was certain they wouldn’t leak anything to the media. Dan remembered all too well what had happened to other pop stars after they revealed that they weren’t straight. Well, except for Troye. He was probably the only exception.

Dan went back to stalking the #sunsetalbum tag, but this time his platform of choice was Twitter. He had been tweeting multiple times a day about the album every day in the week leading up to its release and every day since the release.

@danisnotonfire: *music notes emoji* creating pictures out of nothing // making light in the darkness *music note emoji*

Immediately after posting the tweet, Dan got thousands of notifications. Like Tumblr, he had had to turn off most push notifications and only kept them for a select few people, such as the people he followed. Ignoring all of the ones from people asking for him to have sex with them, he waded through the remaining tweets trying to find one to reply to.

@silviasponge: @danisnotonfire dude this is literally from my favorite song on the album

This one was good enough. Most of the other replies were just people typing partially capitalized random letters, aka the internet way of freaking out and/or screaming.

@danisnotonfire: @silviasponge im honestly offended arent all the songs your favourite

This was immediately met by the girl flipping out that her fave had actually replied to her and all of her friends freaking out right along her. Dan closed that tweet and continued looking through his replies.

After replying to a few more tweets, Dan closed his phone. It was the first time he had mentioned this particular song on any social media or even in an interview and there was a surprisingly large negative reaction to his tweet and he didn’t want to deal with it right now.

It was just lyrics from one of the tracks on the album, Constellations, which was probably one of Dan’s favorite songs to write. It allowed him to explore a bit of a darker side of himself while still keeping the space theme of the album, a stark contrast to most of the rest of the album which was largely happy and, well, light, which matched his branding. The internet for the most part loved this song, if only for analysis purposes. Dan had seen many posts about it and it was in fact, one of the most discussed songs.

Dan was worried that the song would split the fandom when he was writing it but wrote it anyway, and turns out he was right, if not to the scale that he feared, but still divided. Some claimed it was too different to have actually been written by him while others claimed it was one of the few songs that actually showed who he was inside. _Oh well. Can’t please them all_ , Dan thought.

Elise seemed to sense his shift in mood. Without looking up, she questioned him. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Remember how I was worried how people would react to Constellations?”

“‘Course I do. You were right weren’t you?” she replied.

“Partially. Most people don’t know what to think about it but then there are those who have overly strong opinions about it and think anyone who disagrees with them can go fuck themselves.” Dan leaned his head against the window of the car. It had begun to rain. Typical London.

“You know what we always say about that Dan. You’re always going to have those people and there’s nothing you can do about it so it’s best just to let it go,” Elise tried to comfort him.

Dan, not wanting to discuss it anymore, quickly changed the subject. “On days like today, it’s a good thing you convinced, aka forced, me to leave my hair curly as part of my branding. This rain would have reverted it back to its natural state in an instant and you know I like to take the least amount of time possible in hair and makeup and having to re-straighten it would make that time longer.”

“So is this you admitting I was right?” Elise shot a smug glance over to him.

“I still prefer it straight but I’ve gotten more used to leaving it natural so it doesn’t bother me as much anymore,” Dan replied. He was still staring out of the window and noticed they were approaching the familiar BBC Radio 1 building. “We’re almost there.”

“No shit Sherlock,” Elise shot back. Comments like that were partly why Dan chose Elise as his manager. She was younger than most of the other managers, but she didn’t let this affect her work. And it was nice to have a friend who he could discuss things like the new season of Sherlock with, which surprisingly actually existed at this point in time.

The car pulled up to the building and Dan and Elise got out and made their way inside. He followed Elise through the familiar halls. Dan had been an intern here during his brief spell at university. After he was picked up by his record label, he had had to quit his internship and postpone his university studies in order to focus on music full time. That was almost a year ago and Dan regretted nothing.

Dan was led to the hair and makeup rooms. There was about an hour until he was on air and Dan needed his makeup artist Louise, who had met them there, to make him look like a presentable human being, aka one who didn’t spend valuable sleep time and every possible waking minute on the internet.

“Seriously Dan. You need more sleep. Not only does it make my job harder, but it’s bad for your health too,” Louise chided him after Elise left to go make sure everything was in order.

Dan and Louise had met while they were still in university. Louise was a few years older than Dan and was majoring in cosmetology while Dan had still been undecided in his major. She had immediately taken him under her wing and became the typical “mom friend.” When told he needed a makeup artist, Dan had convinced the label to let it be Louise. There were only a few other people he trusted enough to do something like this and none of them were good at makeup. Plus, he didn’t want to have to go through the process of trying to find someone else when Louise was right there.

“I’m sorry Louise. You know how I am about stuff like this,” he replied as Louise was applying whatever products she used. Dan had long given up attempting to learn exactly what she did and now just sat there as she worked her magic.

“Yes Dan. I still remember you sending me your essays to read, when you actually did them, even though I had no idea what they were supposed to be about. But this is taking your need for validation to a whole new plane of existence.”  Louise finished applying all of the makeup to hide the huge bags under Dan’s eyes and got started on the actual eye makeup like eyeshadow and stuff like that. “How do you want your eyeliner done today? Cat eye, huge wings, little wings, no wings, hm?”

“Little wings. What color did you do they eyeshadow today?” he asked. Louise loved to experiment with eye makeup--it was her favorite part of doing Dan’s makeup. He never cared about what she did, so long as it looked good and sticked with his branding. Well, when he needed to match his branding, such as when he had an interview. Other times he couldn't care less.

Louise stepped back and examined her work. “Nothing too out of this world today. I did a mint green to match your jumper and a little purple in the corners. That is the color of flower crown you have today right? If not, I can redo everything really quickly.”

Dan pulled the flower crown out of his bag. It was one of his favorites. The little purple flowers intertwined with green leaves and small stars formed a circlet which Louise took and placed on Dan’s head.

After rearranging his hair slightly, Louise took the flower crown off and placed it on the table with all of her supplies. She grabbed a can of hairspray. “Close your eyes.” Dan obliged and Louse carefully sprayed the hairspray on. She once again stepped back to scrutinize her work. After deciding she was satisfied, she once again placed the flower crown on Dan’s head, this time pinning it in place so it wouldn’t be messed up by the headphones. Dan had long mastered wearing both a flower crown and over the ear headphones, but it was still good for extra security.

“Okay you are done. Shoo while I clean this up before going to watch you. And don’t mess up your lip gloss. I know you’re going to go find where they keep the snacks and so help me if you mess it up.”

Dan did what she said and left Louise to clean up. True to what she had said he would do, Dan immediately went to where they kept the snacks in the room people waited in before going on air. He had been here for interviews enough times in the past couple of months to know exactly which room they would have put him in. Dan grabbed a bag of chips and sat down. He carefully ate them. He really didn't want to face the wrath of Louise today.

He glanced at the time on his phone. She had finished his makeup in record time today which meant he could spend the next 10 minutes chilling before having to go make sure the mics and cameras were set up. Of course Dan didn't do this, he was just there doing whatever the techs told him to do, such as reposition his mic. Dan had missed his days of occasionally getting to help with the process.

On days like today Dan really wished doing radio interviews was how it used to be. No video live streams, just audio. If he was doing an interview like that, he could have shown up in sweatpants and a hoodie and no one would have been able to tell, except for the people who were actually there of course. Now he has to get all prettied up every single time he did any sort of interview.

Dan knew that his fans probably wouldn't have cared if he actually had done the interview in sweatpants and a hoodie, but the record label executives definitely would have. Dan immediately pictured some guy in a business suit yelling at him about how he was “ruining the company’s image and his own right along with it.” Dan sighed.

Just as he finished the bag of chips, Elise walked into the room, banging the door open. Dan, who had been lost in thought, shot up out of his seat and assumed a pseudo fighting stance, looking for the person he needed to kick the shit out of. Not that he could have done that even if he tried. Dan couldn’t even kill a bug if he wanted to. Except spiders. Fuck those guys.

“Woah there buddy,” Elise said, slightly startled.

Dan saw her and automatically calmed down. “Sorry. I was just thinking and you startled me.”

“So I gathered,” Elise responded. “Anyway, they need you for mic checks and such. You know the drill.”

Dan threw away the chip bag like a decent human, grabbed his phone which was he had left on the table, and grabbed his bag with his spare clothes in it. Elise marched out of the room and Dan, like a puppy, followed her. As they once again wandered through the familiar halls, Dan found himself starting to get lost in thought yet again. This didn't last long, however, as they soon reached their destination.

Dan looked inside of the booth and saw a familiar mop of brown hair getting mic checked. The man, upon hearing Dan enter the booth, looked up at him.

“Chris!” Dan exclaimed. “I didn’t know it was you who was going to be interviewing me today!” Dan and Chris looked over at Elise through the window. She had been watching them and had been waiting for Dan’s reaction. She gave them a cheeky thumbs up and grin. Dan went back outside of the booth and grabbed Elise and brought her over to a corner so they could talk.

“You didn’t tell me it was going to be Chris who interviewed me today.” Dan and Chris had been interns at the station at the same time even though Chris was a few years older and while Dan had quit to pursue music, the BBC hired Chris to be a full time presenter once he completed his internship and graduated from university. Dan had largely lost touch with Chris after he had started working on Sunset and had become extremely busy, but he still considered him a good friend.

“The last couple days have been a bit tough on you so I thought this would be a nice surprise,” Elise explained. “I know you used to be good friends and I specifically requested it to be him who interviewed you. If it had gone the way I wanted, this interview would have been the first one you did, but unfortunately Chris wasn’t available until today. But I’m rambling. Go catch up with him.” Elise thought about what she said for a second and then glanced at her watch. “Or maybe wait to do that until after the show. You’re live in a few minutes.”

Dan hugged Elise and scurried back into the studio and carefully put on his headphones as to not mess up his perfectly placed flower crown. After flipping on the switch for his mic, he said, “Is this thing working?”

The techs behind the glass who had been waiting for him nodded. One of them reached onto the soundboard and adjusted a few levels and gave the signal for Dan to say something else.

“Hi my name is [Dan].” Dan had located a camera and was looking at it and made brackets with his hands as he said his name. “Okay. Never doing that again.”

Chris, who had finished with his mic check just looked over and laughed. “Still do something embarrassing every time there's a camera near you, don’t you? Remember that one time at uni when you-”

Dan, who had flushed deep red as he thought of the time he was pretty Chris was about to relive (Chris loved to tell this story at every possible opportunity), cut him off. “Please Chris not now. Not in front of all of these people.”

This predictably only seemed to spurn Chris on further. He immediately launched into the story. “Okay everyone,” he announced loudly, causing a couple people to immediately turn down their headphone levels. “So this one time at uni, Dan got really drunk and he decided that it would be a great idea to stand half naked behind someone and photobomb them. Only they weren’t taking pictures, it was a video and-”

Dan, who had certainly had enough of this, reached over and turned off Chris's mic so no one else would be able to hear him. “You’re forgetting I know how these things work. I used to work in the station, remember?”

Chris opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, the director came on over the mic. “While I’m sure there would have been a hilarious end to that story, you guys are live in five. Chris do you have your notes?”

“Yes Grace. I have them right here.” Making sure to turn his mic back on, Chris held them up so she could see.

The director, Grace, seemed satisfied with this and left the techs to do their thing. One of them took the mic in the control room back from Grace and started giving Dan and Chris instructions. “Okay Dan you know how to work everything in there don't you? Still remember from your intern days?”

Dan nodded. In his spare time, Dan had learned how most of the consoles worked. If he hadn’t gone into music, he would have wanted to be a radio host like Chris. “I might have forgotten some of it but I remember it not being super hard so I’m sure it it will come back to me.”

“Good. This makes our lives easier.” The tech started giving them instructions and Dan and Chris obliged.

He enjoyed being included in this process. Dan knew it was only because he had worked at Radio 1 before that he was allowed to do this. For other interviews he had done previously, Dan was just forced to awkwardly sit there while techs jostled around him doing stuff he knew he could have easily done, if only they had let him. It wasn’t like there was a /huge/ difference in technology between stations.

All too soon, the techs gave Grace the ‘we are ready’ sign and she once again came on over the mic. “All right everyone. We are ready and live in less than a minute.”

Dan looked over to where Elise was and saw that she was joined by Louise. They both saw him looking and gave him a small wave. He smiled and returned the wave. Elise was giving him a thumbs up and Louise was mouthing “You’ve got this.” This helped to relieve Dan’s nerves.

No matter how many times he had done interviews and performed, he still got anxious before each and every one. _Deep breaths, Dan. Deep breaths._ Dan thought to himself.

“We are live in 20,” Grace announced.

 _Smiles on. Like Louise said, you got this._ Dan put on the most genuine smile he could muster. He looked over at Chris who was concentrating. _In. Out. You will be fine._ _Just in and out._ Dan leveled his breathing and made an effort to relax.

“Live in ten, nine…”

Dan looked at the camera. _I can do this._ He smiled. This was just another interview. _I’ve done this a hundred times before._

“...three, two, one. Dan and Chris you are live on BBC Radio 1!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is my first chapter of my first fanfic! And I actually posted it! Are you proud of me? 
> 
> Anyway, any and all comments are appreciated! (seriously I crave validation) 
> 
> I don't know how do to hyperlinks, but special thanks to acespacedweller and thetrashmenagerie101 on tumblr for beta-ing this for me. You guys are seriously the best. 
> 
> If you want, you can find me on tumblr at existential-rainbows. You don't have to though. But it would be nice to talk to some of you ^_^
> 
> It should also be noted that I'm horribly awkward with new things such as these authors notes. I'll get better eventually. Probably.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that I have no idea how film companies work. That is all. Thank you and enjoy.

“Come on Phil! We have to watch this!” PJ dragged Phil over to the TV. PJ had turned it on and was streaming some interview from Radio 1.

“Remind me why you are forcing me to watch this again.” Phil sighed and allowed PJ to watch his show. Phil then looked at the TV and saw the radio DJ that PJ liked. “Oh. I still don't know why you like him so much.”

PJ just shushed him and went back to watching the interview. “I’m not watching it for Chris.”

The DJ that Phil was referring to asked the guy he was interviewing a question. “So Dan, what was your favorite song from Sunset to write?”

Phil didn’t pay attention to this Dan guy’s answer. “If you aren’t watching it for the guy you have a low key crush on, then why are you watching this?”

Phil half expected PJ to ignore him but, not looking away from the TV, he responded. “Dan Howell just released a new album and his manager contacted the company about producing a music video and I really want to be able to direct it.” 

“That would be your biggest project to date right? If you got it that is.”

“Yeah and I liked the album and I think getting to work on the music video would be great for my portfolio. Now shut up. I’m trying to watch.”

“Yeah Sunset was fun, but it was a shit ton of work. Wait shit. No swearing on air. Crap.” Dan on screen blushed from his mistake. Phil thought it was amusing watching a man dressed in pastel colors, with a flower crown no less, swear. It almost seemed like the antithesis of the young guy’s personality.

“Wait is he the guy who the media is currently raving about?” Phil asked, trying to put the pieces together and figure out why this guy seemed familiar. 

“Yeah.” Phil knew that PJ was trying to ignore him but it wasn’t working. It was very hard to ignore Phil and PJ knew that if he didn’t respond, Phil would continue to pester him until he finally did. Therefore, it was just easier to give short, one word answers. 

“Would I be correct in assuming you already bought the album and have been listening to it on repeat?”

PJ responded by throwing a CD case at him. Predictably, Phil did not catch it and instead it hit him in the face. “Thanks PJ but that hurt.” Phil picked up the case and turned it over. The album art was a picture of a sunset but instead of having the normal reds and yellows of a sunset, it was all pastel colors and the silhouette of a boy was sitting in front of the setting sun with the name of the album written with stars. 

As Phil was contemplating the aesthetic of the album art, Chris just so happened to ask Dan about that. “So @flowerfun1289 on Twitter wants to know how you picked the album art.”

“Well this one day we had a big photoshoot, both with a green screen and on location. The photographers took probably over a hundred photos and after that they sent them off to a graphic designer to edit and make them into fully fledged covers. Then after they were done, the potential covers were presented to me and I chose the one that made it onto the actual album.”

““I like to have some amount of control of the stuff connected with my music unlike some people who will just hand it off to some poor graphic designer without any idea what they want and expect them to make it perfectly. I actually originally wanted to design the cover myself as kinda  a tribute to my YouTube thumbnail making days, but I had to focus on other things. Nevertheless, I think the cover is perfect and so much better than I could’ve done,” Dan explained.

“Dan you do realize the entire internet now wants to know how much that picture was edited, right?” Chris asked

Dan just winked in response. 

“Again with the winking? You cheeky little sh--”

“Next question Chris,” Dan stopped Chris from swearing on air, like he had accidentally done a few minutes prior. 

Phil immediately had so much more respect for Dan. As an editor, he could relate to the graphic designer that Dan spoke of. There were some directors who just handed him a flash drive of all the raw files and told him to get on it. These were the same people who yelled at him for not editing it properly because it didn’t fit their vision. This was thankfully mostly through email but there was the occasional director who took the time to yell at him in person. 

Just then a phone starts ringing, playing All Star by Smash Mouth. Dan immediately flushed and tried to casually turn it off without removing it from his pocket.

“Oh come on Danny. How unprofessional,” Chris tutted. Meanwhile Dan was still struggling to turn his phone off. “Why don't you just answer it?”

Dan’s eyes immediately went as wide as a plate. “No no. Please don’t.” Dan had finally managed to extract his phone from his jeans after giving up trying to turn it off through them.

Chris immediately reached over and snatched it from him. “Oh look. It’s his mum. Why is the ringtone for your mum All Star? Seriously Dan? Better question: should I answer it?” Without waiting for an answer, he answered the phone and put it on speaker. “Hi Dan’s mum!”

The voice on the phone responded. “Is that Chris from the radio? Where’s Dan?”

“Yes this is Chris. As for Dan, well he’s currently live on BBC Radio 1. Wave hi Dan.”

Dan certainly did not wave hi. In fact, he looked like he wanted to disappear and honestly Phil couldn’t blame him. His own mother was a bit … what’s the word? ... enthusiastic whenever she called him on the phone. And she did the typical mum thing where she said whatever came into her head. 

Dan suddenly stopped trying to turn invisible and snatched his phone back from Chris. After getting a good grip on it, he said quickly, “Gotta go mum. Gotta finish this interview. I’ll call you later! Bye, love you!” He hangs up the phone before his mum can say anything else and shoved it unceremoniously into his jeans. Continuing on as if nothing had happened, Dan continued to answer the questions Chris asked him.

“So Dan, earlier you mentioned that one of your favorite songs to write was Eclipse. @spaceisvcool wants to know what song do you think was the hardest to write.”

“Constellations was probably the hardest for me to write. As many people have pointed out, it's very different than the rest of the album and took me out of my comfort zone slightly. I actually tweeted some of the lyrics earlier. @danisnotonfire if you wanna hit me up. Hashtag cheeky spon.”

“It wouldn’t be an interview with Dan Howell without some shameless self promotion in there somewhere.” Chris shook his head. 

“You know it.” Dan gave one of the cameras a wink. 

The interview continued and Dan kept giving well thought out answers. Phil found himself liking this Dan guy. He seemed very enthusiastic about his music and liked to be involved with it. He wasn’t just some guy with a pretty face and a pretty voice.

Soon the interview was coming to a close. “This is Dan and Chris, signing off on BBC Radio 1. Bye!” Chris and Dan waved to the cameras as the subtle background music faded out, to be replaced by the next show, to which Phil didn’t get to see what it was because PJ immediately clicked the TV off and set off to who knows where.

After the interview was over, Phil went and listened to Sunset. He had to admit, it was good and he could see why people loved it so much. As a fellow lover of space, the space theme of the album was very pleasing. It was a little strange to hear the album after hearing the singer Dan talk about it for almost an hour. He almost felt like Dan’s own views on the album were influencing his own, but hey, what can you do? 

Phil downloaded the album to his computer and put it on his phone. Unfortunately Phil’s job as an editor did not allow him to listen to music while he edited footage, but Phil knew that if he had a boring desk job, this would be the perfect music to listen to while doing mind numbing work. Instead he had to sit in near silence while trimming clips down millisecond by millisecond until it was perfect 

He checked his email and saw that he had yet another email from the filmmaker asking him to do even more stuff with the footage and told him which stuff needed to be changed even though Phil had done it exactly as originally asked to the best of his ability (the instructions weren’t super clear). As if Phil wasn't doing enough on this project already. 

_ Okay. In five minutes I will start this _ , Phil told himself. Five minutes later, he was researching the boy from the interview. Apparently, like PJ, Dan had gotten his start on the internet. He had posted both covers and original songs on a YouTube channel, which he now posted the occasional vlog on. His second channel posted full length, high production music videos of the few singles he had made before Sunset. Dan was obviously talented and Phil wondered how interesting it would be to work on a danisnotonfire (an amusing contrasting name from his apparent personality and branding) music video, even if he would be working behind the scenes.

Needless to say, Phil didn’t get around to editing the video before it was time for dinner, which would be saying something if dinner wasn't in like half an hour. 

Phil could hear PJ in the kitchen making god knows what. PJ liked to experiment with everything and this included food. Only this didn't work out too well some of the time. Phil could only hope that he did not have to experience the cranberry and cheese flatbread fail that PJ had subjected him to last week. This had given them both food poisoning.  _ Never again _ , Phil vowed.

“Hey PJ what’s for dinner?” Phil called across the flat. Underneath the loud noises PJ was making by banging pans around so much, Phil swore he could hear a familiar song. How one person could make so much noise while cooking was a mystery to Phil. 

“Why don't you get your lazy arse in here to see for yourself?” PJ called back. Typical PJ. Phil didn’t know why he put up with him half of the time. 

They had been friends since university when they were both struggling to get through the film production degrees they had chosen, PJ in video production and Phil is post production. When PJ started making videos for YouTube in his own time, he asked Phil to help him and naturally, Phil agreed, if only for wanting to have practice editing. (He did have to act in the films on occasion, which wasn’t too bad.) And they had been working together ever since.

Phil sighed and dragged his ‘lazy arse’ over to the kitchen. PJ was making some pasta dish which explained the large amount of banging from pots that Phil had heard. 

“You’re listening to Sunset again? I’m starting to think you’re a tad bit obsessed with it,” Phil accused PJ, whose back was currently turned toward Phil so he couldn’t gage the extent of his reaction. But Phil was fairly certain he was blushing slightly, if PJ’s slightly hunched shoulders were anything to go by. 

“No!” PJ defended himself. “I’m just researching for the music video.”

“You mean the music video that you don't even know if you will be working on or not? Be careful with that. If you seem a little too eager they might not give you the job and that would suck for you.”

“It would suck for you too, you know. I know you hate your current job ‘cause of the director who shall not be named and if I got assigned something as big as this, they would have to give you back to me,” PJ reminded him. 

After PJ got noticed on YouTube for his filmmaking skills, he was hired by a rather respectable London film company, which benefitted Phil as well because PJ refused to sign on with the company if they didn't bring Phil on as well, to which they thankfully agreed, if only because they had a need for another experienced editor. Phil now was one of the most requested editor for other filmmakers, but he preferred working with PJ. It also helped that PJ all but refused to let any other editor work on his projects unless Phil said that he needed an assistant editor, but for the most part it was just the two of them at the head of their projects. 

Phil shot PJ a look. They didn’t talk about how Phil really didn't like the filmmaker whose stuff he was currently working on and they both knew that the only reason he took this job was because he needed something to pay the bills. Phil was currently looking for any excuse to pass the rest of the editing along to another editor, even though he was nearly done, and the best excuse of them all was PJ needed him for a job. 

Phil knew he owed a huge debt to PJ and as much as Phil didn’t like it, it was true. Phil would much rather have gotten where he is by his own doing. Whenever he voiced these concerns, PJ told him to “shut the fuck up” because the only reason they agreed to hire Phil because he is good at what he does and PJ would never have gotten noticed if it wasn’t for the superior editing along with his own creativity.  

“I wish, but do you really think you have a good shot at getting the job?”

PJ stayed silent for a second, thinking about it while he stirred the noodles in the boiling water. “I think I have a decent shot. I’m one of the only relatively senior filmmakers who doesn’t have another huge project going on right now. But it’s hard to know for certain. I’m not even supposed to know about this. I just happened to be getting coffee at the same time as a couple higher ups were discussing how Howell’s manager contacted the company.”

Just then the timer dinged, signaling that the pasta was done cooking. Phil got up from the seat he was currently occupying and went over to help PJ. “What are you putting in the pasta this time?” 

“I was thinking shrimp.” PJ showed him the sauce and shrimp that he was working on. 

“Smells good. Better than last week's fail.”

“Don’t remind me. Smelled, looked, and tasted horrible. Tasted even worse coming back up. Never again.” Phil had to agree with this.

After dinner Phil went back to his computer. He put on his headphones, wiggled the computer mouse to wake it up, and pulled up the editing software. Phil edited the rest of the video and added all of the (in Phil’s opinion) quite unnecessary and distracting flairs as requested. He emailed the filmmaker yet another copy of the hopefully finished film file, sat back in his chair, and took his headphones off. 

_ I wonder if I could ask the higher ups for permission to never edit for them again. I don’t think I can deal with another project like that, _ Phil thought. As if the higher ups were psychic, his computer dinged, telling him he got an email from work. When Phil clicked on the email, he saw that it was addressed to him and PJ. In the subject line were the words ‘New Project?’. 

Right as Phil was going to call down the hall to ask PJ about it, he heard a quite unmanly, very excited scream. Next thing Phil knew, the door to his room banged open and PJ ran inside. Just the fact that PJ had run showed Phil that PJ was very excited about something and Phil would have to be an idiot to not be able to guess what this something was.

“Phil, Phil, Phil! They picked us!” PJ informed him. 

“Slow down PJ! I haven’t even read the email yet.” Phil knew PJ would try to tell him only the important parts and to avoid this, he put his noise cancelling headphones back on and read the email. 

Dear Mr. PJ Liguori and Mr. Philip Lester, 

Recently our company was contacted by the manager of the up and coming pop star Dan Howell, Miss Elise Herden, asking if we would be interested in making a music video for Mr. Howell’s song Sunset from his recently released album of the same name. After further conversations with Mr. Howell’s manager, we have decided that you two are the best team for the job. Please come in to the studios next week to discuss further details with Mr. Howell’s manager. Also note that should you choose to accept this, all projects you currently have will either be postponed or given to another crew. If you are interested in this project, please reply to this email as soon as possible.

Sincerely, Heather Mitchell, Head of Project Management at Fibre Optic Films

After Phil had finished reading, he took his headphones off once again and turned to PJ who was standing anxiously waiting for him to finish reading the email. “So we are going to do it right? Cause I will force you to if you don’t say yes so help me God, Phil.”

Phil rolled his eyes. “No PJ. I don't want to do it. Never in a million years,” he deadpanned. PJ’s face immediately dropped. “I’m just kidding you dingus. This could be the opportunity of a lifetime. Of course I will do it.”

PJ let out the breath he was holding. “Good. For a second there I thought you were serious.” 

“Do you really think I would turn something this big down? This is literally the opportunity of a lifetime.” Phil had pulled up an email to reply. 

Dear Mrs. Mitchell,

I would be happy to work on this. Thank you for choosing me and PJ for this. When next week do we need to come into the studio? I would also greatly appreciate it if you could email Miss Herden and let them know I look forward to working on this with them. Thanks in advance!

Sincerely, Phil Lester, Senior Editor at Fibre Optic Films

PJ looked over his shoulder. “Oh yeah. That’s probably a good idea. Accept before they can give it to anyone else. I’m gonna go do that.” He left Phil’s room to go write the email and Phil is left sitting there in silence, trying to process that this is happening.

Phil checked the rest of his emails and saw that another director had emailed him back answering some questions he had with her project. Phil read through the email and pulled up the project. After watching though what he had so far, Phil was stuck. He didn’t know how to do what he wanted to do. After staring aimlessly at the footage for a few more minutes, Phil sighed. He needed to get out of the flat.

“PJ!” he called out. “I think I’m going to go into the city for a bit. I might not be home until late so don’t bother waiting for me.”

“Got it. I have the flat to myself for the next couple hours. I think I’m going to blast Sunset on repeat until I get back.”

“Dear god PJ please don’t. You’ll irritate the neighbors.” PJ was already playing the album and Phil extracted himself from his chair in front of his computer. 

Phil made sure the footage was saved to the cloud before grabbing his laptop and putting it into his computer bag. While he did prefer to edit on his desktop computer, as it was much faster, Phil didn't mind editing on his laptop when he needed a change of scenery. 

On his way out of the flat, Phil makes sure to grab the essentials. He had locked himself out of the flat way too many times and he didn’t want to deal with trying to get PJ to stop howling with laughter and  just let him in. 

Phil wandered around for awhile while listening to Sunset. Phil, thankfully, had had his headphones in his pocket otherwise it’s quite likely he would have had to go back to the flat and get humiliated by PJ. 

Once Phil got to the local Starbucks, which was surprisingly busy for the time of night. Phil ordered the first of his much needed coffee and sat down at one of the few empty tables, which happened to be near an outlet. Phil pulled out his computer, plugged it in and just started editing. 

Some time later, the length of which unknown to Phil, as he was in Editing Mode, he felt a tap on his shoulder. Looking up as he took off his headphones, he saw a pair of soft brown eyes.

“Hey can I sit here?” Brown eyed boy gestured to the empty seat across from Phil. “Everywhere else is full.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again. I am, in fact, not dead, just had really bad editors block. If you have any questions about this fic, please feel free to drop it in my ask box on tumblr, existential-rainbows. Also please feel free to message me. I'm always willing to talk. Sorry I'm still learning how to use AO3 so I don't know how to provide a direct link. (if anyone does know, please tell me.) 
> 
> As always, I crave validation so please leave any and all comments below, even constructive criticism.
> 
> Again, I don't know how do to hyperlinks, but special thanks to acespacedweller and thetrashmenagerie101 on tumblr for beta-ing this for me. You guys are seriously the best.
> 
> OH AND I MADE THE ALBUM ART FOR SUNSET. Here's the link.
> 
> http://existential-rainbows.tumblr.com/post/155319745969/album-art-for-my-fic-like-the-constellations
> 
> This isn't any less awkward than my first author's note, is it? Oh well.


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